Generator fails during fire response

Moorcroft Public Works Director Cory Allison reported a problem with the town-owned generator to the council after the January 25 grass fire that devoured around 1000 acres east of town. The department was providing water to the fire trucks as they were emptied on the site.

“We lost power out there. We had the fire trucks trying to keep up so Dave [Elliott] and [I] had to come in and get all the town wells running,” he said.

“We were at high capacity, trying to keep up with the fire trucks. We did keep up with them, but with our generator being down out there, it died down and was dead.”

He explained to the council that the machine is serviced once a year and is also programmed to automatically start and run for an hour every Monday to charge the batteries, ensuring the tool is always ready for employment.

“There’s no [indicator] telling us it does if we’re not there to see it… For some reason, it must not have been running for a while, maybe through that cold spell, I don’t know,” he said.

After a couple suggestions, the director agreed to keep track of the hour meter weekly to better track the charging periods.

The machine is housed in the heated maintenance shop and the batteries are four years old.

“What I’m guessing,” the director said, “Is when we had that cold spell; we lost power during that cold spell, too, and I’m wondering if we didn’t freeze those batteries.”

Allison noted, “This is the first time we’ve ever had an issue with it, in all the years I’ve been here – when we needed it the most.”